I am a makeup lover, always have and always will be. The art of applying good makeup is a very powerful skill. It takes the right tools and products to get the job done. The right makeup can turn any plain Jane to a beautiful goddess, so I had to learn the skill for myself. Thanks to YouTube and the very talented beauty vloggers, who upload beauty tutorials, I have fine tuned my makeup skills for the better. With a lot of practice, I am better than how I was years ago. I am still learning though, as long as we keep living, we keep learning right?

My makeup bag at the moment is all about MAC, Mary Kay, Fashion Fair, The Body Shop, FACE atelier and a few other brands. It is currently a mixture of high-end and drugstore brands, but more of high-end, and MAC in particular, and I will like to change that this year. I will like to experiment with NARS, Barry M, Charlotte Tilbury, Tom Ford, and Illamasqua. I have had my eye on these beauty brands for a while now, thanks to the millions of blogs YouTube beauty channels.

When it comes to makeup or pretty much anything, I prefer high-end brands to the cheap drugstore brands, because I have been there and done that, and the fact remains, these brands are cheap for a reason. I have used and still use many drugstore makeup brands and majority of them are no good, no shade intended, just my honesty opinion. There is a reason why MAC goes for £15.50 and a regular drugstore brand goes for £6.50 per lipstick.

The cheaper brands are usually not long-lasting, and one thing I need is for my makeup to stay in place for at least 12 hours. I can live with touch ups here and there, when required, but I can’t live with applying my makeup, only for it all to completely disappear after a meal or a long walk. Having said that I do remember going into a John Lewis some months ago to test out a high-end face powder, I heard so much about thi particular face powder so I was eager to try it out. It was for about £30, so it was quite pricey. I was extremely disappointed after the face powder was applied on my face, it looked like I had NOTHING on. Definitely not worth the £30 price tag or maybe the beauty consultant got my shade wrong. Whatever the case may have been, the experience left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I was glad I did not order it online before trying.

I guess the jury is kind of out on whether most high-end makeup brands last longer and look better than the drugstore brands.

Another issue I have is, majority of these drug store makeup brands here in the UK come in limited shades, for example, I am unable to get my shade of powder, concealer or foundation in a regular drug store. I find most of them do not cater to the black skin, even if some of them claim they do. I know some pale skin ladies also struggle to get their right shades too. I have discovered that the ‘expensive’ do the work, and cater to my skin colour, so I don’t bother with cheap brands.

I am one of those people who look at the price of a beauty product before buying. I believe beauty does not come cheap and I have tried and tested many products on both ends and I still believe it. What do you think? I will love to read your views. Drop me a comment.

Thanks for reading.